Not So Superman

I admit it: there are times I feel pop culture has left me in the dust. Am I just too old to have fun? I had heard many good things about the latest Superman film, written and directed by James Gunn, whose Guardians of the Galaxy had amused me a great deal. My tastes tend to run toward the intellectual, but—for a complete change of pace—I do enjoy extravaganzas with a side order of goofiness.

And everything I read about this particular Clark Kent/Superman combo seemed hugely appealing. I liked the fact that Gunn had apparently chosen to sidestep the angst-ridden, cynical Superman of several recent iterations and made HIS superhero a bit of a dork, or at least a gentle, upstanding guy with slightly old-fashioned tastes.

 It sounded interesting, in this day and age, that as a result of Lex Luthor’s machinations this Superman would come to be reviled by the public as an alien, a dangerous representative of another culture who has illegally invaded Earth. (The complaints in some quarters that this Superman is too “woke” don’t make much sense, in that Gunn’s superhero is far more connected with his folksy midwestern adoptive parents than with the pair who sent him to Earth as their own planet faced annihilation.) 

 I also heard many plaudits for Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane, as a worthy successor to the smart, spunky Margot Kidder back in the Christopher Reeve days. I too was impressed by Brosnahan (who, with her throaty voice, SOUNDS like Kidder, but has a contemporary sassiness all her own). The surprise in this version is that she knows full well about Clark Kent’s secret identity, and is not above questioning his values and his methods—in the name of journalistic integrity, you understand. Spoiler alert: she concludes that she’s really into him, despite it all.

 But I can’t agree with the critics and fans who have oohed and aahed over the presence of the wonder-dog Krypto. Gunn apparently got the idea for inserting Krypto into the story after he himself adopted a pandemic rescue dog with a great talent for screwing things up. Gunn’s tales about the exploits of his own computer-eating Ozu are hilarious, but I felt no particular affection for the clearly animatronic wonder-pup who nearly kills Superman while trying to come to his rescue. (Yes, this Superman needs rescuing more than once: we first see him immediately after his first-ever defeat by a superhuman bad guy, and he seems to get knocked around a lot.)

 So what’s the gist of this particular Superman film? I’ve heard critics say joyfully that this is the Superman of their comic-book-centric childhoods. For me, alas, it’s a loud, long, noisy bounce from midwestern corn (in all senses) to eerie Arctic wasteland to ravaged metropolis to a futuristic “pocket universe” gulag entered through a desert campsite where all of Lex Luthor’s minions wear cheery Aloha shirts. I couldn’t always follow it. Nor, honestly, did I want to.

 The comic-book world of superheroes has been with us since the 1930s. For young boys, in particular, characters like Superman, Batman, and Captain America have promised vicarious adventures and a well-developed sense of right vs. wrong. Hollywood in recent years has benefitted hugely from its superhero connections, and—with movie attendance now flagging—

this year’s Superman and Fantastic Four flicks are much needed. But why does it all have to seem so silly? (I’ve just learned that James Gunn began his career with Lloyd Kaufman’s Tromeo and Juliet, full of severed limbs and possibly the stupidest film I’ve ever walked out on.)